


Imperator

by The Poet of Deimos (Kkharrin)



Series: Midea [1]
Category: Red Rising Trilogy - Pierce Brown
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Gen, Golden Son Spoilers, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Betrayal, The Aureate, The Society
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-03-10
Packaged: 2018-05-26 00:00:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6215446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kkharrin/pseuds/The%20Poet%20of%20Deimos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I wrote this about a year ago now, back when I finished Golden Son for the first time. </p><p>Anyone who knows me knows that Roque is my favourite character and I just couldn't resist the urge to do a character study of his relationship with Cassius after the Betrayal. </p><p>It kind of grew from there into something called the Midean Verse, a post-Morning Star world state that doesn't entirely follow canon but was born from musings with fellow Skype Howlers before MS came out. </p><p>You please, read and enjoy. The tumblr post of this short can be found <a href="http://lordbelatiel.tumblr.com/post/115984175080/imperator">here</a></p><p>My RR tumblr can be found across at silentstradivarius.tumblr.com if you have any questions ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imperator

The Gardens of the Governor’s Residence glowed with the light of the early evening, the white drapes of the pergolas swaying in the breeze, whipping from the waves with the taste of salt.

Roque hadn’t kept count of the hours he’d spent staring out to sea. He’d always been the sort of person to preoccupy himself in thought, but even he felt a little overwhelmed by the burden he now worked under.

He flicked his wrist and set the white wine swirling in the glass, his gaze momentarily diverted from the horizon.

‘Planning to drink yourself to death, friend.’ Roque felt his shoulders tighten under Cassius’ touch, wanting to brush away the stains his fingers had left on his burnished armour.

‘You’re all too familiar for someone who had their sights on my head less than a fortnight ago.’ He replied quietly, his voice holding all of the bile he felt building inside him.

‘Let bygones be bygones, surely.’ Cassius smiled his golden smile, stretching out, cat-like, on a chair beside him. ‘We’ve all committed atrocities here, no point keeping score.’

Roque let his eyes flicker to Cassius, taking in the perfect curls and sculpted marble features that made him the epitome of Gold. The exact opposite of what Darrow should have been. Roque had always wondered who was the better man.

‘If you say so.’

Silence seemed to broaden the distance between them. Roque could feel Cassius’ eyes upon him as he stared stoically out to sea, but he did not break and turn. He would never bend a knee to another again, what good had subservience ever done for him. Those he loved had died regardless.

‘Roque, I swear…’ Cassius began, his gaze piercing.

Roque pressed his lips tight, his memory slipping back over the last few years, wondering when he could be free of the life he had been born into. He saw Tactus, frowning with concentration, the same precision that made him deadly with a razor bringing joy in a soaring sonata. Lea drawing tight into his side as they huddled beneath an open sky. The pain, the sheer agony that had ripped through his body that night, the night he had lost her. Quinn and Tactus lying on clinic tables, mouths gaping, eyes like graves.

‘Gorydamn, Roque, look at me!’ Cassius had a hand tight on either side of Roque’s chair, his face on a direct level. Roque couldn’t tell if it was anger or worry that filled his eyes.

I chose Darrow, Cassius. How could you ever trust me again?

‘I’m not your friend, Cassius.’ Roque replied levelly. ‘All my friends are dead.’

Cassius blinked twice, gold eyes confused, as if Roque had struck him directly across the face. Then there was only silence, Cassius lapsing back into his seat.

Be angry, Roque begged. Hate me, loathe me, threaten me, kill me, Cassius. Don’t leave me in life knowing all I have done.

‘Soon you won’t feel like this brother.’ Cassius sighed, standing in a smooth surge of white cloak, clapping his hand once more to Roque’s shoulder. ‘Imperator Roque has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’

When only silence followed his question, Cassius sighed again and Roque saw him eying the wine glass as if he wanted to take it away. Roque wished him luck in trying.

When he looked again, Cassius was gone.

The horizon burned red, he couldn’t seem to escape the colour. The thought of what Darrow had wanted, the destruction it would have wrought, he shook his head. No matter how wrong it felt he had made the right decision. Wrong by his friends, right by the world.

The grey morality of the situation made his head hurt, it should be a matter of pure logic, a mathematical balance of life and death, and yet his guilt did not have a place in that equation. His system was flawed. He had destroyed the man who had once been his friend, the man who had lived and almost died by his side, because he was different? Because he was a red when he should have been a gold?

Darrow had not been perfect, he had barely been a friend, not in the way Roque had needed. Instead of trusting him he had drugged him, when Roque was to put his family name on the line for him. Where had Darrow been when he had been beside himself with grief? Where had Darrow been when Roque had wanted to die?

Once again he had no answer. It was not the first time he had posed the question to the waves below and neither did he feel it would be the last.


End file.
